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Talk:Edmunds (planet)/@comment-24.24.242.85-20150501074859/@comment-108.63.239.61-20150530203620
As you noticed, Interstellar prompts consideration of some interesting, ethical, and other kinds of philosophical, questions. Nevertheless, ample scientific knowledge manifests in the circumstances, and the events, depicted in the film; in contrast, very little philosophical, or ethical, knowledge does so. The film, and questions such as yours, are some reasons for concern about the imbalance, as it were, between our empirically justified (i.e. mostly scientific knowledge) knowledge of the world and our rationally justified knowledge of the world (i.e. mostly philosophical knowledge). In any case, to answer your question, if you want the tl;dr, go to the final list in this message. Otherwise, start here. 1. The word 'value' relates to the words 'good', 'better', and 'best', just as the word 'speed' relates to the words 'fast', 'faster' and 'fastest. Accordingly, we may use the adjective 'good' to, and only to, ascribe value to something. 2. There is a reason to eventuate a state of affairs in which some given thing obtains if, and only if, we may ascribe value to that thing. Accordingly, it is the case that there is a reason to eventuate a certain state of affairs if, and only if, we may use 'good' to describe something that would obtain in such a state of affairs. For example, 'charity is a good thing' entails that there is a reason to eventuate state of affairs in which charity generally characterizes the behaviour of agents. For another example, 'that is a good car', entails that, there is sufficient reason to eventuate a state of affairs in which those cars exist. We may contrast the concept denoted by 'sufficient reason' and the concept denoted by 'decisive reason' thus: any statements such as, 'there is sufficient reason to do that, and all statements or set of statements, that entail, presuppose, or imply such a statement, independently entail that there is at least as much reason to eventuate a state of affairs in which the relevant thing obtains as there is reason to eventuate a state of affairs in which some other comparable thing, or things, obtain; whereas, if we were to replace 'sufficient reason' with 'decisive reason' in the foregoing statement, then statements, and sets of statements, such as the aforedescribed ones would entail that there is more reason to eventuate a state of affairs in which the relevant thing obtains than there is reason to eventuate any other state of affairs in which some comparable thing, or things, obtain. Accordingly, there is a decisive reason for something only if there is a sufficient reason for it. 3. An action, or a belief, is a justified action, or a justified belief, respectively, if, and only if, there is a sufficient reason for the action, or for the belief. However, for any belief, and for any action, in any set in the set of all sets of mutually exclusive possible actions, or the set of all sets mutually exclusive possible beliefs, the belief, or the action, is a justified action, or is a justified belief, if, and only if, there is a decisive reason, for the action, or for the belief. 4. Statements such as 'one must do that' are true if, and only if, there is a decisive reason to do the thing under consideration. Statements such as 'one ought to do that', are true if, and only if, there is a sufficient reason to do the thing under considerations. Statements such as 'one may do that' are true if, and only if, there is not a sufficient reason not to do the thing under consideration. Now, let's answer your question: your question seems to assume the truth of a claim that we may express thus: For any agent, *it is the case that s/he ought not knowingly do anything that contributes to any, individual, or collective, act that s/he knows, or ought to know, will probabily interfere in the evolution of life that inhabits a world other than the world on which his/her species evolved.* Now consider the concepts that we explicated in the numbered paragraphs (1-4). It is an analytic (i.e. conceptually necessary) consequence of our normative (i.e. pertaining to what one ought, or must, do), and our axiatic (i.e. pertaining to value), concepts, that if the claim stated above this paragraph is true, then it necessarily is the case that we must ascribe more disvalue, than value, to the act under consideration. Hence, we need to ask what value is. The answer to that question that most philosophers hope is true, is not the answer that most philosophers suspect is true. All of our science and reasoning indicates that value and disvalue exist if, and only if, agents who can appraise things exist. Appraisal is an agent's judgement of a thing that produces a belief in the agent about the value of the appraised thing (we may call the mental state that results from favourable, and unfavourable, appraisals, 'appreciation', and 'depreciation', respectively). Why do agent's appreciate somethings as depreciate other things? There are two possible answers: 1. We evolved to appreciate what conduces survival. 2. Value is a real thing (i.e. it's 'out there in the world' or 'mind independent'). If (2) is true, then we must answer to questions: A. If there are only physical things (which most philosophers and scientists accept), what physical thing does value consist in? The claim that there is a quantum valuon, or some other physical thing in which value consists, seems absurd. Additionally, value is not a relation (when we use value as a verb, as in 'x values y', we mean exactly what 'appreciate' denotes, and that is not the same thing that 'value' the noun denote). Therefore, value cannot consist in a relation between physical things. Furthermore, even if there are non-physical things, then the principle of conservattion of energy precludes them from effecting the physical world, and so they could not cause us to know about them, and so we could not know about the value of things. Additionally, for any given thing, that thing is a a physical thing if, and only if, it perturbs space time. As such, if non-physical things could cause us to know about them, then they would perturb space time, and so they would be physical things. Therefore, knowledge of non-physical things is not just a physical impossibility but it is also an analytic impossibility. Therefore, there would be no epistemically credible justification for accepting the claim under consideration (that we ought not screw with life on other planets): i.e. if the claim is true, then the fact that it is true is just a coincidence. B. What is the evolutionary explanation for our perception of "real" (i.e. mind-independent value)? Perhaps one would argue that perception of value conduces survival or reproduction. However, if that is the case, we might ask for an example. The best example of such a perception is pain. However, depreciation of pain does not inhere in the perception/sensation of pain: consider that we may analyze the phenomena as pain as constituting a certain sensation and the deprecation of that sensation. The fact that we can analyze the two evinces the fact that the depreciation associated with pain does not necessarily inhere in the sensation of it. Moreover, there are drugs, such as Vicodin, that eliminate the depreciation of pain, but not the sensation of it, (i.e. the patient knows s/he feels pain, but doesn't care that s/he does). Furthermore, some people, such as practioners of BDSM, appreciate pain. Perhaps one would argue that our faculty of reason enables us to infer the real (mind-independent) value of things. However, if that is the case, then we deduce the value of things from innate beliefs, or from beliefs that perception ultimately justifies. If we deduce them from innate beliefs, then there is a physical cause for us innately believing things that correspond with mind-independent value or there is a non-physical cause of the same, or it is a "massive coincidence". However, the argument presented in (A) informs us that any argument that appeals to a physical, or a non-physical cause, is false. Whereas, proponents, and opponents, of arguments for the existence of mind-independent value both reject arguments that appeal to a "massive coincidence". Additionally, if we deduce our conclusions about the real value of things from beliefs that perception ultimately justifies, then there is a physical, or a non-physical cause for our perception of what justifies those beliefs, and again, the argument presented in (A) informs us that any physical, or non-physical explanation of our perception of what justifies those beliefs is false. Therefore, statement (2) is likely false. Moreover, it cannot be true unless both, the laws of physics, and the laws of logic, are both false. Accordingly, we ought to reject (2). Therefore, by elimination, statement (1) is true. Statement (1) entails that value exists just when, and just to the extent that, things appreciate something. Nevertheless, perhaps one would argue that there is not sufficient reason to conclude that what we appreciate is better (i.e. of more value) than what the entities that wouldn't evolve if we were to interfere with the evolution of life on a particular planet would appreciate, and that, as such, there is not sufficient reason to inferere with the evolution of life on a planet. However, if we were to suppose a situation like the one depicted in Interstellar, then we might acknowledge the counterargument in the preceding paragraph, and reply thus: We do not know, for certain, what entities natural selection will produce on that planet. We do not know for certain whether it will produce anything capable of appraisal. We do not know whether our colonization of the planet would, prevent the production of such entities, or conduce the production of such entities. However, we do know that if we do not colonize that planet, there will be fewer entities presently capable of appraisal. Moreover, we know that if we do colonize that planet, there will be entities on that planet capable of appraisal. Finally, as we have ascertained, value, and therefore, justification, depend on appreciation. As such, circularity quickly manifests if we attempt to justify differently appraising different kinds of entities experiences of appraisal. Therefore, we cannot ascribe more, or less, value to the potential alien entities' experiences of appreciation that we ascribe to human experiences of it. Hence we may conclude: 1. The magnitude of value that obtains is a function of the number of instances of appreciation that obtain in the universe. 2. There is decisive reason to eventuate any state of affairs in which a maximal magnitude of value obtains. 3. We ought to do whatever there is most reason to believe that there is decisive reason to do. 4. Therefore, by (1), (2), and (3), we ought to eventuate any state of affairs for which there is maximal reason to believe a maximal number of instances of appreciation will obtain if that state of affairs obtains. 5. We know that an event (human extinction) will decrease the number of instances of appreciation that will obtain, unless humans colonize the planet under consideration. 6. We do not know that human colonization of the relevant planet will decrease the number of instances of appreciation that will obtain on that planet. 7. Therefore, by (5) and (6), there is maximal reason to believe a non-maximal number of instances of appreciation will obtain, unless humans colonize the planet under consideration. 8. Therefore, by (7) and (4), we ought to colonize the planet under consideration.